


Lain Low (original unfinished edition)

by pherede



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, But Happy Endings Aren't Cheap, Character Death, Complex Consent Issues, Dubious Consent, Elvish Sexuality Is Weird As Fuck, Happy Ending, Horrible Things Happening To Everyone, M/M, Master/Slave, Mildly Dubious Consent, Orgasm Denial, Political Difficulties, Public Humiliation, Public Sex, Rape Equals Death, Sexualized Torture, Sexy Witch-King, This version is abandoned for a completed and heavily revised edition, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-06
Updated: 2014-05-13
Packaged: 2017-12-31 16:36:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 19,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1033909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pherede/pseuds/pherede
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Mirkwood has fallen, and the Necromancer (they say) has found something he once lost, and orcs and darker things are crawling..."</p><p>After years of heartbreak, obsession, and dark fantasies, King Thorin Oakenshield comes into possession of a new toy-- a toy that will break if he uses it too harshly. A toy with silver hair and distant eyes, whose existence might cost him everything, and whose face reminds Thorin of memories that hurt too much to bear.</p><p>This is an incomplete version. The current version is heavily revised and expanded and may be found in its completed form on my works page.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

He has heard rumors, the whispers of stories. Mirkwood has fallen, and the Necromancer (they say) has found something he once lost, and orcs and darker things are crawling through every acre of land between the Misty Mountains and the Iron Hills. Rumor says that some great elf-enchantress has been drive from her grove, and now rests in Rivendell; rumor says that blond horsemen with fell faces have been sweeping up from the south, and dealing with the dark power at Dol Goldur under the leadership of their decrepit king.   
  
For Thorin, King Under the Mountain, this means little. The Dwarves are for the Dwarves, and he is the lord of them, now that Dáin is dead. Dark things move in the world; and dark things whisper in Thorin's heart, rumor and suspicion.  
  
Yet in this growing dark, there are a few things Thorin will not stand, the chiefest of these being dwarves enslaved to orcs; so when the slave-drivers come, Thorin sends his unruly nephews out to hinder them, and to bring home the lost children of Mahal whenever they are found.  
  
Most of these caravans are populated with men and elves, and they will die quickly, Thorin knows; no use to waste his strength upon them, who will not give him aid even if they live, and who will not suffer long. But dwarves were made to endure, and they are precious to this Necromancer with his machines and strip-mines, which must be run in the dark and deep places, reeking with foul vapors, filthy and loud; and dwarves can endure them.  
  
And if this gives his nephews something to do, to placate their unrest and their growing ill-temper, it is only a secondary blessing. Most of all Thorin wants them to see-- these loud brash dwarves that his lads have become, with their strange foreign friends and their gold-heavy eyes-- what an alliance with the Necromancer would become.  
  
For he has sent envoys, oh yes he has, promising safety from the coming war, promising tools and engines that plow the earth more efficiently than the knowledge of dwarves, promising bushel-baskets of sapphires and cities made of gold. And Thorin has seen his nephews' faces, and recognized the ancestral gold-madness there; so it is for the best, that Fili and Kili learn who are the true foes of Erebor.  
  
Now they stand before him, dark triumph glittering in their eyes, and besides their rescued kin they have taken one more, an elf in chains and hooded with a rough sack, as if they bring him to the headsman instead of to their uncle's throne. White-gold hair falls from beneath the filthy cloth, and Thorin's mouth goes dry.  
  
"We've brought you a gift," says Fili, smirking. "Almost left him, but Kili recognized his face."  
  
"What have you done," says Thorin, hoarse, knowing that what he feels in the next few moments will destroy him; and Kili laughs and pulls off the hood, and it is after all these dark last days Thranduil kneeling chained and filthy at the foot of his throne. His face is thin, but still beautiful; he is draped in rags, and still more haughty than any king.  
  
Old familiar rage uncurls in Thorin's chest like a dragon awakened upon its hoard, and his worry for the souls of his sister-sons vanishes in a tide of greed and punishing rage and half-forgotten sorrow. He is off his throne in a heartbeat, and he nods voiceless to the lads as he takes Thranduil's chain, hauling the elvenking upright.  
  
He has never ended an audience so abruptly, but then he has never needed anything so urgently, not gold nor throne nor Arkenstone. He has imagined this before. He has spent some time poring over old scrolls and tomes, feeding the dark fires of his heart with the histories of captured and tortured elves and how their fates were spelled out; and if deep in his heart some more innocent self is protesting, he knows-- he is sure he knows-- exactly how far he can push and still keep his revenge.


	2. Chapter 2

Thorin orders a bath drawn, and clean clothing and bandages brought, and ointment and bread; and while he awaits them in his own chambers (the wait is not long) he strikes the chains from Thranduil's wrists. They are not necessary; Thranduil is weak from long privation, and his flesh as Thorin reveals it is marred with whip-marks fresh and old, streaked with blood and orc-filth. Nausea tightens Thorin's throat at the sight.  
  
He has always imagined this, has he not? Was there any time in the sweet distant days of Thror's rule that he stood by his father's throne and felt his heart ache with strange songs at the sight of Thranduil's beauty? These days are buried now in the graves of his kin; to him Thranduil is no more than the implacable figure elk-stride, turning away, no more than a suspicious captor demanding that he forsake his ancestral home. Is he not to have the satisfaction of his revenge?  
  
But it is so easy, with Thranduil lying helpless and weak in his bath, with that white and silken skin between its marks, to pretend that the outrage he feels is still directed toward his old foe. In Thorin's mind he is not, has never been, the lad who longed for this hand's touch, for this mouth's caress. And if he is brusque in his scrubbing, if he ignores the hiss of anguish as the water pours slightly too hot-- he is not washing Thranduil for his own good, but so that Thorin will not need to touch orc-filth and dried blood to take his hateful pleasure in Thranduil's body.  
  
There is a dry white film across half of Thranduil's face, and crusted into his hair, and Thorin touches it, puzzled. Thranduil speaks: "I have already tasted the hospitality of Durin," he says, and shudders. "Your sweet nephews would have-- they meant to use me, and I begged them to kill me first, to spare me the slow death of rape--" The words strangle in his throat as shivers rack him.  
  
Sick rage clouds Thorin's vision, and Thranduil continues: "They painted me, your darling nephews, but they feared to do more. They said... ah Elbereth, mercy--" and with this tears overflow his eyes and his voice fails entirely.  
  
"They said this was to be your fate at my hands," murmurs Thorin, and Thranduil shies from his touch convulsively, curling against the side of the copper tub. Ill-used he has certainly been, to lose his nerve and dignity so completely; and Thorin washes away the dried spend of his nephews' disrespect with a steady hand, while Thranduil lies silent and shivering in the hot water beneath his ministrations.  
  
"My nephews are mistaken," says Thorin at last, when he can speak. "I want a good deal more from you than a few seconds' pleasure and a swift unpleasant death."  
  
Thranduil pulls himself upright in the tub, with grave difficulty, and hope spreads across his face. "Surely you, whose people have used me as harshly as orcs, do not mean to treat me with honor," he spits, and Thorin sees the old fire and pride come back into his expression.  
  
Yes, this is how Thorin has imagined his enemy, reduced in circumstance but still haughty and fighting, and his voice is dark when he replies: "On the contrary, Thranduil, I mean to make you beg for it." And he pours the last of the wash-tub over Thranduil's hair, and draws him from the bath bewildered, to lie upon the broad bed of furs and linen and dread what next thing Thorin will do.

"I will not," says Thranduil, drawing up his knees to cover himself, resting lightly upon the furs as though too timid to stir them even to cover his nakedness. "What you want from me will kill me; and I will die before I let myself be corrupted."  
  
"No easy death, from what I have read," says Thorin, advancing upon the bed, though he keeps himself at angles to his prey, so as not to frighten him into bolting. "First the violation, the struggle-- and you are weak, it would be no great labor to restrain you-- and the pain of tearing flesh, no pleasure at all for you; and then pallor, shivering cold, shallow breaths and heartbeat slowed to silence, and death in shock and dread before your body has ceased to twitch around the torment of penetration. I have read widely, Elvenking, and well; so when I tell you I will not be deprived of my prey, you understand..."  
  
Here he settles himself upon the bed and, reaching out one hand, strokes Thranduil’s knee (white, stark, the muscle thinned with long captivity), and he tells himself that the compassion in his voice is a mask he wears, though what lies behind the mask he will not allow himself to imagine for a moment. “It is no way for even the lowest beast to die,” he murmurs, voice low and sweet, “nor should you imagine for a moment that you will be raped while you are under my hospitality. If my nephews touch you, they will be punished harshly; if anyone sets their hand to you—“  
  
“Except you,” says Thranduil, his sides heaving like a rabbit in the snare.  
  
“You are under my protection,” says Thorin. “You are  _mine_.”  
  
And though Thranduil flinches from him, though the weight of Thorin’s fingers seems too heavy for those long bones to bear, Thorin keeps his hand upon his captive’s thigh, warm steady fingertips and palms, as one soothes a skittish colt.  
  
“You will learn to submit to my hands,” says Thorin. “The day is coming when I shall touch you as I please, and the touch please you.”  
  
Thranduil turns his face away, wet silver tresses sticking to his shoulders; and Thorin’s servants return with bread and soft white cheese and a jar of preserved summer fruit, then depart without a word, their eyes only flickering to the tight pale figure of Thranduil for a moment.  
  
Thorin feeds him, cheese smeared on bread, still hot from the oven and cool from the larder; he does not permit Thranduil to take the food in his own hands, instead making Thranduil crane his neck to have each bite placed between his lips. Thranduil, for his part, offers only a token resistance, and Thorin knows that his depredations have been great indeed, and knows from long experience of war how precious is wholesome food after a time of starvation; and when he gives Thranduil the preserved fruit, Thranduil moans as he tastes it, and before he can stop himself he licks the last traces of syrup from Thorin’s thumb.  
  
The touch of that tongue feels like blood-spattered triumph; Thorin’s nostrils flare and his chest rises, and sick horror spreads across Thranduil’s face, followed by a deep flush.  
  
“Eat,” says Thorin, and Thranduil seems to weigh his own starvation and the chance to delay whatever comes next against the humiliation of eating bread and cheese from the hands of his dark-eyed captor. Then he opens his mouth, and with downcast eyes he takes every morsel given to him, neat white teeth and bruised, split lips not touching Thorin’s fingers any more than strictly necessary; and even still Thorin wants to press his thumb into the cracks where Thranduil’s lip has bled, to see him wince, to know that something he does will make Thranduil react.  
  
He is beginning to suspect that nothing will ever be enough.

When the food is gone, Thranduil slumps down onto the furs, hair spreading out around him; and Thorin straightens, knowing that he has other duties to attend, but not wishing to leave Thranduil alone in his chambers. Nor does he trust any watchers, not now that he has seen bruises, not now that he has washed away his nephews’ slime; so he binds Thranduil at the wrists and ankles, naked and undraped, and leaves him lying upon his bed-- eyes open and blank, brows drawn together in a shadow of remembered pain, arms pressed back against too-stark ribs and bound at the buttocks with thin ropes-- to be dealt with when he returns.


	3. Chapter 3

There is a council-meeting; the fell horsemen who have allied with the Necromancer are swift on their mounts, and they now wish to treat with the dwarves, to form an alliance that need not be-- in name at least-- a bond to the Necromancer himself.  
  
Fili is saying something, his voice filled with fire, his fist pounding the table like a war-drum between his phrases. He wants the spears and lances of the Rohirrim, and the gold of their beards to trade on the field of battle for the gold of Gondor, which might yet fall if caught between the hammer of Mordor and the anvil of Rohan-- and why should the dwarves be excluded from the wealth of its inevitable fall?  
  
Kili wants nothing to do with them. Men, he says, are not to be trusted in anything, short-lived vermin that they are. If Gondor must fall and be looted, Rohan in its turn will be weakened, and why should the dwarves risk their own heads now and share the loot with sweating men and come at last to be the slaves of the Necromancer himself? Could they not simply let Rohan break its own back, then strip Meduseld of its ill-gained glory at their own leisure?  
  
For his part, Thorin listens through a fog. He is, briefly, glad that one nephew distrusts the old Enemy so thoroughly; but his mind returns ever to the pale thin throat and flickering empty eyes of his prey.  
  
He should want to destroy, defile, profane; but the target of what he should feel has gone missing, slipped away into a silent space he cannot reach, and the need to hurt has simply dissolved into the need to  _have him back_.  
  
Thorin does not recall the ending of council, nor quite exactly how he returned to his rooms, but there on his bed lies Thranduil, unmoved, his white spill of hair now perfectly dry beneath him. His lips are parted and his eyes closed. He is, Thorin realizes, asleep; which means that elves do sleep, when perfectly exhausted.  
  
Of course Thranduil wakens, as Thorin sheds his robes of state and his heavy harness of jewels. And his eyes brighten by the smallest increment when Thorin feeds him again, bread and broth with a gentle hand that belies the force and hunger in Thorin's heart.  
  
Thranduil balks at first when Thorin offers him wine, but the wine is very good and Thorin unties his captive's arms to let him hold the cup for himself, and when he has had a single glass Thranduil lets himself be drawn beneath the furs and covers, warmed in his limbs by the draught, and does not protest when Thorin pulls him close, though his breathing grows shallow at first.  
  
Like this they lie, Thranduil's back to Thorin's chest, Thorin's strong arm wrapped around Thranduil's waist like a lover; and with time Thranduil relaxes, until he lies once more sleeping. Unguarded, though Thorin lies so close to him-- untroubled, though Thorin lies sleepless, counting every inch of skin that rests against his own. Unprotesting, though Thorin's length stiffens and presses against Thranduil's back, against the curve of the spine above his buttocks, so close to the place where force could rob the elvenking of virtue and of life.  
  
But Thorin's prey will not escape so easily, though the torment of longing keeps him awake well into the dawn.

* * *

When he awakens, it is from slow dreams of languid sun and the shadows of branches on his face. For a few moments he remembers-- was he once so happy? Was there something so warm and so peaceful in his heart?  
  
Then he opens his eyes and finds himself resting in the silver flow of Thranduil's hair, and feels the tense and shift of the elvenking's body, and knows that he lies dreaming with his enemy in his grasp.   
  
Thranduil is making a mockery of him. Undermining him with his helplessness, with his beauty, making him an unfit king. No doubt he has been bewitched, as elves turn the eye and twist the mind. Did he sleep through last night's council? Was he to be so easily made a fool?  
  
He feeds Thranduil from his hand again, this time not allowing himself to look at the flicker of tongue against the crumb of the loaf, studiously avoiding the question in Thranduil's eyes. He is strong against elvish enchantment, is he not? His eyes are dark and he knows Thranduil fears him. He is a king.  
  
He is staring at the curve of Thranduil's lip where that pink tongue has just traced, captivated, ensnared. He is sick with the need to touch, to taste, to bite. And Thranduil, who is watching his expression intently, sees this in him, and understands that Thorin aches at the sight of him, and sees at last some vestige of power left in his station.  
  
Thranduil's eyes fill with cunning, as if they had never been empty, and he swallows his morsel of bread, locks eyes with Thorin, and licks the curve of his lip with slow deliberate intent.  
  
And Thorin curses his own weakness, curses his own helpless need, even as he cups Thranduil's jaw in his hand and tilts the elvenking's head back and follows the trail of Thranduil's tongue with a drag of his own lips. It is not a kiss, he tells himself. He only wants to taste.  
  
But he binds his enemy again with brusque and trembling hands, and leaves him lying on the bed without daring to look at his face again, to see the triumph on that pale and delectable mouth.  
  
Thorin should have bitten him instead.  
  
He orders Thranduil fed by a servant, and does not return until evening-time, once he has found a collar with a chain (the treasuries are full of such follies). The collar fits perfectly, and Thorin loves the sight of it, the chain adorned with emeralds and moonstones against that porcelain throat, the doubt and trepidation in Thranduil's slowly awakening eyes.  
  
"You will eat at my table," says Thorin, gesturing for Thranduil to stand. "At my feet."  
  
Thranduil finds his voice at last. "What will I wear," he says, as though he knows the answer; and Thorin only laughs, and leads his naked captive still bound at the wrists through the halls of Erebor to the dais of the great cavern where the feast is served, to show off his conquest.  
  
He feels the eyes of his kin following him, and he sees how their gaze lingers upon the tall thin form of Thranduil, and how they observe Thranduil's nakedness and understand that Thorin has found a new and precious toy.

It is a mistake, he realizes, when his nephews arrive for the evening meal and their laughing eyes alight upon Thranduil's form. Fili actually whistles, like a dockworker harassing a fishwife. Kili is quieter, but Thorin sees how he stares, how he worries his lip with his teeth.  
  
It seems that his display of victory must also be a display of his own supremacy. So he eats, and he feeds Thranduil from his fingers, and he watches and listens; and when Fili's jests and jibes become too vulgar, he slaps his hand down on the table. "He is my guest," Thorin says, and he lets the resonance of his kingship echo and resound with double meaning. "He is mine, to do with as I wish, and you will respect my wishes."  
  
Fili is sullen afterward, and mutters with his fellows. But it is Kili that waits until Thorin has finished his wine and given enough drink to Thranduil to put roses on his too-thin cheeks, and leans so casually forward to knock his half-empty glass over, so that red wine pours across the tablecloth and spatters like blood on Thranduil's skin. And Thranduil flinches as the droplets run across his mouth and drip down his throat. His eyes, which have been locked to the ground with shame when they are not following Thorin's hands from plate to mouth, go blank and still again, the bird flown from its captor's cage.  
  
"My apologies," murmurs Kili. "So clumsy of me. Though... he is so lovely, stained."  
  
The pit of Thorin's stomach falls. He knows what Kili is playing at; he knows why Thranduil's eyes are empty now.  
  
"But surely you will clean him yourself," adds Kili, his clever eyes roving and lingering on Thranduil's skin. "Or, if you wish," and he glances up to his uncle, "I will be glad to do the work myself."  
  
His meaning is clear. The contrast is too great: Thranduil's shame-brightened expression as Thorin's pet, and the blank terror of his face now, have told Kili that Thranduil remains undefiled, that not only has Thorin refrained from forcing his captive but that he has also neglected the torments short of actual rape.   
  
And if Fili is content to warmonger and crow and revel in bawd, Kili is growing wiser, and will perceive weakness where it lies naked and trembling, and will strike like a serpent where he knows he cannot fail.  
  
The meal is over; Thorin leads Thranduil, still shaking, back to his chambers, and washes the wine from him with his own hand, and holds him to his breast in their bed until the shivering ceases and Thranduil's eyes have turned from numbness to humiliation to mortified gratitude for his own safety.   
  
He considers having Kili killed. The boy will have his throne, if he is not careful.  
  
And yet, he reflects, as Thranduil turns to face him, long thighs tangling with Thorin's own powerful calves, white hand curling reassured against Thorin's broad chest-- Kili is the only one of his possible heirs who truly understands, who will not give aid to the Necromancer, who will carry the glory of Erebor into inevitable war.  
  
Kili cannot be sacrificed on the altar of Thorin's lust. But the elf in his bed is a liability, and a throne is a fragile thing, and Thorin begins to understand that the price of his kingdom will be the death or submission of Thranduil, once king and now captive, now slumbering on his breast.


	4. Chapter 4

After this, where Thorin goes, Thranduil goes. Sometimes the elvenking is draped, or permitted to wear one of Thorin's old tunics (which barely cover Thranduil's nakedness, and leave his white thighs exposed).  
  
Sometimes Thranduil goes naked, and it does not take Thorin long to teach him to recognize these as days when he will be the illustration of Thorin's power. If he retreats into silence, clothed, things go well enough for him; if he is naked, Thorin will demand more of him. He looks for ways to demean his captive without breaking him, to see shame instead of blank distance-- and to hold himself separate, so that none of his subjects ever see how Thranduil's tongue stirs him to frustrated lust.  
  
He makes Thranduil kiss his feet; he makes Thranduil beg for scraps of food; he puts down a bowl and makes Thranduil drink like a dog. And Thranduil learns quickly. Within a fortnight Thorin has only to glance at his naked captive to see him grovel, to watch him press his face to the floor and moan.   
  
The first time Thranduil kisses his feet without being ordered, Thorin rewards him with a sweetmeat, and the look on Thranduil's still-too-thin face kindles a fire in Thorin's belly.  
  
The next time he gives Thranduil a truly costly tidbit: six seeds from a pomegranate, one of the first of the oncoming winter, fruit ripened under the white dying sun. He does not comment on the tears that well in Thranduil's eyes as the seeds stain his lips. And he accepts as his due the way Thranduil kneels, leans, and presses his face to his new master's calf in an agony of gratitude.  
  
Thorin lets himself smirk. All around him, chewing and conversing, his subjects watch this happen: the last king of Elves, prostrating himself for a mouthful of seeds from Thorin's hand.  
  
Kili looks at them both with cold hatred. And Thorin matches him with a look of triumph, for what would-be usurper could lay his hand upon his enemy's head-- like this, broad fingers catching spider-silk hair-- and feel that ancient head tilt, and feel that proud cheek stroke against his palm?

Thus begins an unspoken battle between them. Kili is swift to recruit his brother, who he no doubt intends to supplant once Thorin falls, and the two of them are relentless, goading and sniping, tainting each meal with sly suggestions. "You should bring him to dinner marked," says Fili, "or bleeding a little," and each day his hints grow more bloody-minded, until Thranduil shudders at Fili's descriptions of needle-punctures and broken, punished hands.  
  
"I hope he shows his gratitude with his mouth," says Kili, and his remarks are less terrifying but more chilling, somehow. "It must be very hard to keep him alive, with the things I suppose you do to him-- unless, for fear of hurting him, you are letting him command  _you_."  
  
Abrupt silence falls at the table. The elders look at Thorin with wide eyes; such insolence cannot go unaddressed.   
  
"Watch yourself, nephew," says Thorin, and his voice is heavy with poison.  
  
But Kili's eyes are aflame with strange force. "Or shall I watch  _you_ , uncle, as you are enchanted by this... this spy of orcs? We brought him to you, my brother and I, to serve as your plaything; instead you nursemaid him and look at him with fondness, while the kingdom is run ragged about you. Either bend him to your will, and with him we shall force the elves to serve us; or break him and be done with him, if your cunning is not great enough to bring a mad elf to heel!"  
  
The challenge hangs between them like a death-knell. Thorin is no fool; he knows what comes next, the battle-challenge, the warlike lads who will come for him, one after the other, breaking his defenses (which are rusted from his time in the mountain, where he must practice with the sword rather than honing his skills on orc-flesh)...  
  
He is so stricken by his own doom that he does not realize until too late what Thranduil is doing, why those long fingers are working at his belt, why his knees are being spread with a twist of shoulders so that Thranduil can press himself between, seated on the floor with his mouth leaned close to Thorin's belly.  
  
"Let me show them," says Thranduil, his voice trembling with shame. "Please, my master, let me show them how you use me, punish me instead of them."  
  
Thorin cannot imagine what he means. Have they not seen Thranduil lie at his feet? Does he wish to be bound, as he was when he first came to be Thorin's slave?  
  
But Thranduil pushes up Thorin's tunic, letting his loosened belt slither to the sides, and as he opens Thorin's laces with shaking hands Thorin remembers that Thranduil has also been a king, and understands the delicate balance and timing of power, and trusts him enough to sleep in his bed with his skin pressed burning to Thorin's own.  
  
Then Thranduil has him in hand, and his head falls forward as his lips part, and Thorin has only a moment to understand before his cock is engulfed in slick heat.  
  
This has never been done to him. It is not common, among the dwarves; it is perverse when given reciprocally, and degrading to the one giving pleasure if he is given no pleasure in return. For Thranduil to offer his mouth so wantonly, to perform this thing so publicly even though he gags and his skin burns with humiliation... 

There has never been such a stir in the great hall. Kili sits down heavily, mouth open and eyes dilated, his gaze locked on Thranduil's struggling form between his uncle's thighs.   
  
As for Thorin, he cannot seem to breathe; in his boots his toes clench and flex; he is nearly drowned in the pulse and throb. Already, so quickly, he is on the verge of spilling, on the cusp of forgetting his dignity entirely and grasping handfuls of silvery hair and thrusting his cock into Thranduil's throat and choking him with his come.  
  
But it would not do, to be undone thus before his subjects. He knows what comes next:  _the elvish whore_ , they will say,  _has bewitched him with his mouth_. So he swallows the burning pressure and accepts the torment of forgoing satisfaction and he puts one boot on Thranduil's hip and kicks him away, so that he sprawls naked upon the pavement beneath the table, his shoulder resting heavy against Fili's shins.  
  
The loss is almost more than he can bear. But he is a king, and he must appear strong, and he tucks himself away with a scowl even as Fili reaches under the table and wraps his fist in Thranduil's long hair and hauls him upright by it.  
  
Thranduil's eyes are glassy, his breast heaving. He is, inside, so far away, and Thorin thinks he must have over-reached himself, that in taking Thorin's cock he took himself to the brink of an awful death, and in a moment Thorin has him back to heel with his chain clasped firmly in his fist (away from Fili's twitching hands, away from Kili's hunger-blown eyes).  
  
"Presumptuous," says Thorin, once he can speak. "But you have been a good pet, so I will not beat you for it," and he finishes his meal in silence while Thranduil lies helplessly at his feet.  
  
When he leaves the hall there is no sound behind him. There has never been such a king as him, he knows; but there is no other king besides him, either.  
  
If only Thranduil were not so silent behind him, so nearly-broken. If only the price might not be so great.  
  
He lays his captive out upon the bed and tends him, hands unsteady with the fear that his touch might be too dreadful for the elvenking to bear; but as he chafes Thranduil's limbs he is shocked-- even horrified-- to realize that Thranduil's cock is stiffening, that the length of him lies against his white belly and bobs with each stroke of Thorin's hands along his sides, along his thighs.  
  
He pulls his hands away; and Thranduil groans, his expression regaining its awareness only to be flooded with frustration, and his whole body arches toward Thorin's withdrawn touch.  
  
"Please," he says. "Please, I will finish you, I will let you-- if only--"

If there is anything Thorin wants in all of Middle-Earth-- kingdoms, gold, the love of his nephews, the destruction of the Necromancer-- it pales beside the temptation to have his way with Thranduil now, while he is begging for it, while he is so obviously himself in need. But Thorin remembers with awful clarity the distance in Thranduil's eyes as Fili dragged him upright, the lurid tales in his secret tomes of elves violated and gone limp and cold before the deed was completed...  
  
He lets himself touch, because Thranduil begs with such desperation. He touches Thranduil's face, and sees how his eyes flutter closed and how he twists so that his mouth seeks Thorin's fingers. Thranduil's lips are soft, and close around Thorin's fingertips as if being fed honeycomb, and Thorin touches more, his other hand spreading across Thranduil's belly, his face lowering to press against Thranduil's white throat (oh, the scent of him, dry moss and leaf-mould and the hot sap of firs)...  
  
And yet, as his knuckles graze the head of Thranduil's cock, the tall form under him is convulsed with a gasp that might be pleasure and might be a breath choked off in violation. And Thorin wonders for the first time if, perhaps, his captive thinks him brought to hand at last, and means to work his own death in Thorin's pleasure.   
  
It is enough, if only barely, to pull Thorin away from Thranduil's keening throat, to control his starving palms, to stagger him back into the nearest seat, where he watches Thranduil pant and look at him with questioning eyes and plead to be touched while shame paints his skin as dark as spilled wine.  
  
"Please," says Thranduil, as his breath comes back to him. "I thought this gone forever-- I did not know I could still feel-- please..."  
  
Still Thorin watches him, not trusting himself to speak, and Thranduil continues in anguish: "Why will you not  _touch_  me?"  
  
And Thorin cannot answer him; so he sits in wretched silence while Thranduil creeps beneath the blankets and shakes with untold emotion, and when the servants come in to bank the fires for night they find Thorin staring into the coals with face gone harder and darker than the mountain itself.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is REVISED. Lots of new material if you haven't read since first posting!

The night passes, and the morning comes, but the echoes are not forgotten. Kili and Fili have been put in their place, though they grumble and plot; the elders begin to press for messengers to be sent out, to find what few elves remain and make them ransom their king; and Thranduil cannot disguise the change in himself, the way he responds to Thorin's touch, even though he is too proud to beg again and he pulls his gaze away whenever he catches sight of Thorin watching him.  
  
Which is less often than it might have been, for war is on the horizon, and the last free nations are making and breaking fevered alliances with one another, and the dwarves (as ever) stand alone. The winter deepens, cold in the mountain's heart as out on the fells where the blond horsemen ride, but no smothering roof of snow can quench what burns in Thorin's blood.  
  
He cannot bear this hunger. He takes to touching Thranduil while they lie uneasy in their bed: first with flat palms across his breastbone, at the juncture of hip and waist; then with fingertips that tense upon the subtle fluctuations of muscle beneath the skin. Then there is a night, near midwinter, when he allows his hand to stray further, to wrap and slowly stroke, while Thranduil shudders and rocks in his encircling arm and his shoulders knot against Thorin's mouth.  
  
He makes himself stop, then as always. "It could kill you," he says by way of explanation, and Thranduil replies: "I might not care," and this is enough to steel Thorin's resolve and pin his wandering hands to the bed-ticking for that night and many after.

Not that he is entirely distracted, these days. Fili wants Thorin's throne with transparent lust, and while Thranduil lies and sits and paces in Thorin's chambers, reading from whatever books he is brought, Thorin wars with his nephew over council tables. There are so many battles to be fought, and so few dwarves to fight them-- even now, as the Necromancer cordially awaits their surrender-treaty with the full promise of destruction if they do not comply, they must deal with questions of supply and manpower and funding and alliance. Food for the soldiers means dwarves and man-subjects on the surface, farming, where they must be guarded from orcs and from their own winged fears. Soldiers themselves must be had for coin, or by conscription, and too much coin spent or too many farmers' lads conscripted will gut them sure as any scimitar.

Fili has a head for it, if only he had the tongue as well; and by his furious outbursts and his hints of delusion (for he seems to think an alliance with the Necromancer an acceptable last-ditch option), Thorin manages to keep his advisers and constituents on his own side, while borrowing bits and pieces from his nephew's insights. He will not be a bad king, when he understands the cost of it.

It is Kili that Thorin watches most closely, cleverest and most liked of the two. When an adviser reprimands him boldly over the council table, and his fellows nod and smirk instead of shying back from his sides, Thorin finds that Kili has been supping at their tables. When it takes him seven days to hear about an uprising against the guards among the miners, he discovers that Kili has intercepted the knowledge and dealt with it himself-- a favor, Kili says, to beg his uncle's pardon, but they both know it was a king's duty to fulfill. 

More than one night he is up until the dawn, or later, and he finds himself apologizing to Thranduil when he returns, as if he owes the elf something. He sends autumn fruits when council runs late; he sends a pile of books and a harpist when he is forced to spend two nights away, examining the state of the army.

He does not dare speak to Thranduil of the elves, Mirkwood elves, gathering in secret at the edge of the forest. For his first thought is not that some of Thranduil's people still live, but that he must have their blades, and for a wretched hour after a bitter council he even contemplates trading Thranduil himself for their service. The thought is too much; and the offer he does send them is rebuffed.

Fili shouts at him for even considering such an alliance, and calls him elf-lover before the white-beards of his council hall. Kili meets in private with some of the high ladies of court, and to them he whispers that Thorin's hatred of elves drove him to wreck the parley, that Thorin is rude and cannot swallow his pride.

Thorin loves his nephews, though it is with a balanced and kingly love, and he corrects them where he can and broods when he cannot, but when he catches Kili stroking his foot up and down Thranduil's calf beneath the table, he drags them both into the scullery-- scattering maids and cooks as he goes, his face like a thundercloud-- and dresses them down.

"The throne will be yours in time," he says to Fili, "and yours as well, Kili, unless I misread your scheming. But you little bastards will contain your plots until this war is past, or by my ancestors' beards I will have your heads sent to Rohan to show them how ruthlessly the dwarves deal with fools. Will you give all our lands to the Necromancer just to wear a puppet's crown? Can you not wait even fifty years?"

Fili sulks; Kili spits at the hearth. "The Necromancer," he laughs, full of a child's ruthless dismissal. "Some wizard willing to bend over for Gundabad, no doubt. All his strength is in his alliances, uncle, and if you spend your time cursing at elves we will be crushed by men rather than by orcs. All very well for you to battle dragons, in your day, but now we need a warlord and a diplomat, and I see only one of each here."

As if even one dragon were not the equal of all Rohan's armies, Thorin wants to say, but the words stick in his throat, for he does not want to discuss his most famous battle just now. "You discount the Necromancer at your peril," he says instead, and when Kili cuts him off with a furious laugh, he adds: "How would  _you_ go about gaining the trust of the elves, O clever diplomat?"

"I would send them Thranduil," says Kili, but there is a sudden uncertainty to his voice, as though the idea rings false to him, as though he has only just now realized that Thranduil's descriptions of dwarvish hospitality would break the alliance before the papers could be signed. "Or," he adds, "keep Thranduil, and hold him hostage; and enjoy him until the elves are used up."

Something about the way he says  _enjoy_ makes Thorin's skin crawl. Until now he has seen Kili's jibes as taunts aimed for his ears alone; but now he thinks of the way Kili's eyes rest on Thranduil at the table, and remembers through a haze the dark hunger in Kili's eyes as Thranduil's mouth sank around him--

"If I give him as a reward," says Thorin, "it will not be to a leaderless lot of fickle elves, but to a dwarf who serves his king well," and he wills himself not to see the convulsive leap of Kili's throat, the secret Thorin prays he will not need to know.

 

* * *

So unsettled is he that he keeps Thranduil clad at dinner for some time, and even leaves him to dine alone in Thorin's chambers when Kili is especially sullen or Fili particularly licentious. His old cloak, the one with great shaggy shoulders, is long and thick enough for Thranduil to hide himself in it, and ragged enough by now that it grants him no real honor. He finds himself strangely gratified by the way Thranduil clutches it to him, as if Thorin's hands are the cloth that shields Thranduil's skin from prying eyes.

He likes it enough to let Thranduil wear it in their chambers, likes the way Thranduil's waterfall of hair tangles in the shaggy mantle of it, likes the way it smells when Thorin presses his face to it, unthinking, in the morning-- like Thranduil, but not quite. For Thranduil is not a creature that leaves its scent behind, nothing that can be kept and stored; he leaves so small a trace where he passes (no footsteps, no stray silver hairs, not even a sound unless he wishes it) that the faint breath of oak leaves Thorin finds himself seeking, inhaling, following over the ragged cloth--

Thorin only realizes he is doing it when the trail of scent disappears entirely, replaced by embarrassment. Behind him, beneath the blankets on the bed-ticking, Thranduil is watching him with hooded eyes and a tight mouth, a beast of prey who sees that the hunter has taken up his trail again.

He says nothing, though, and Thorin leaves the cloak upon the floor of his chambers and goes to the steam-rooms to bathe, suddenly overcome with need; but the steam does not purge him, and the denial of nearly a month (how has he survived, sleeping in the bed with his captive, scarcely allowing himself to touch lest he lose his mind and break Thranduil's body) is so much, so strong. 

He wants to make Thranduil sleep on the floor, or on a pallet, but he finds that he cannot sleep without that oak-scent about him, without the warmth in his arms of Thranduil's breathing, without the small murmurs and wary silences of the last candlemark before he drifts off to sleep. 

So great is his frustration that he takes to another custom not commonly practiced by dwarves (at least once they come of age), and one night after Thranduil has drifted off to sleep or some elvish facsimile thereof, he slips out of bed and sprawls in his chair, where he grips his own cock with a groan of satisfaction and pulls at himself furiously, all shame forgotten, until he hears Thranduil moan in answer and discovers that his enemy-lover is also pulling at himself, watching, and Thorin spills over his fist with a sob.  
  
No such release for Thranduil, whose body is not so easily tricked by his own hand, and Thorin throws caution to the wind and forgets his dignity entirely and kneels over Thranduil so that his hair falls across the white belly (no longer so thin, but lean and shapely as ever) and returns the favor with which Thranduil preserved his throne, nearly a month ago.  
  
Thranduil's palms batter his shoulders; his long legs kick against the bed; but he calls out:  _yes, please yes_  and thrusts into Thorin's mouth like a beast, like a thing possessed, and Thorin chokes down the length of him until he realizes that Thranduil's hands are now merely scrabbling at his shoulders weakly and that the fingers against his skin are cold.  
  
Thorin can taste how close his captive is to climax. Salt and bitter oak are slick against his tongue, and even as the life threatens to slip from Thranduil's body, the cock in Thorin's mouth strains and pulses and grows so velvet-hard against Thorin's tongue that he feels his own cock stirring again in response.  
  
Thranduil will die, he reminds himself. Too fast, too forceful; and Thranduil remains his captive, naked among dwarves, his body primed for disaster and violence at any moment-- so Thorin pulls back, lets Thranduil's cock fall against his belly, sees the glassy distant eyes and the wracking effort of each breath, and sets his face against Thranduil's hipbone in something like sorrow and rage and tenderness together.  
  
So nearly lost, this time. How can he keep this up, knowing that each lapse in self-control might cost his captive lover's life? To keep him here only postpones the death to which Thranduil will so clearly submit; to send him away would cost Thorin his kingdom, when he is he last ruler that will stand against the Necromancer when Gondor is fallen.  
  
Thus torn, Thorin curls around Thranduil, his protecting arms restoring the even draw of Thranduil's breath, his murmurs of reassurance slowly easing warmth back into Thranduil's limbs. They are still both hard, aching; but death is too close on every side to permit the passage of love.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is REVISED. There is a lot of new content, if you haven't read it since the first posting.

Thorin is dreaming again. He is dreaming of Mirkwood, before its fall: dark in the corners and bright between the leaves, a moss-slicked mockery of the caverns Thorin calls home. He remembers it as if he had once loved it, as if it had not claimed fully half the members of his Company as they passed beneath its eaves, as if the leaves themselves had not turned black around them as orcs chased them to the river under the Necromancer's sudden surge of power.  
  
He had lost Bilbo there, a friend who might perhaps have been more (if Thorin had not come into Mirkwood with his heart set and rusted on revenge). He had lost dwarves he had known since childhood; their dreams (of Moria reborn, of children grown and wed) died on the blades of orcs, and only Thorin's dream survived.  
  
But this dream is golden, warm and sweet, empty of the hate and obsession that has driven him for so long; and when he wakes and breathes in the scent of Thranduil's hair, it takes a moment for him to recognize what has been missing.  
  
When it returns, it falls over him like a sickness: he thinks of himself the night before, tongue and palate worshiping Thranduil, whom he has spent so many decades longing to torture and defile. Sucking like a whore, not even asking for reciprocation, a degradation fit for a slave, not for a king savoring his revenge.   
  
He had been mad. He had been  _ensorcelled_ , he is sure of it, or addled by the rush of climax after so long frustrated. So he has resolved not to let Thranduil die easily-- what of it? Has he not taught Thranduil to beg?  
  
And if what he feels in his heart as he looks at the sleeping form curled beside him in his bed is not pure hatred, if he also feels tenderness and the urge to protect: certainly, surely, it comes from his determination to keep Thranduil alive to mourn his own ruin, from his refusal to let his prey slip into the shadows of death.

On the floor, his cloak-- now Thranduil's cloak, he supposes-- lies crumpled, a dark piece of refuse stained with blood which he has always claimed was Smaug's. 

What reassurance does he have to offer, in truth, he whose kingdom is built on lies, he whose heart has for so long been poisoned? Thranduil is a fool to be comforted by him-- Thorin, who is eternally one palm-stroke from murder, and whose throne will be toppled soon by enemy or kinsmen, one. 

In echo to his dark mood, he scarcely breaks his fast before he receives word from a wagging tongue that Fili has received a coffer of jewels from an unknown party, an ancient silver box swathed in rasping black silk. Thorin knows in his heart who this unnamed benefactor must be, and it chills him to the heart.

He must do something about his nephews, he knows. In the forty-four years since he returned to Erebor, the world has filled with shadows, and if Gondor falls (as it must, he supposes), his will be the last kingdom east of the Mountains to stand against the Necromancer's might. If Gondor were close enough for a true alliance, perhaps... if the Enemy had not got to Rohan first, what an alliance could be made, crushing Mirkwood between their armies and driving the Necromancer down into Gundabad, or even deeper if the dwarves took few casualties and were strong enough to pursue...

Foolish. He cannot change what has happened, only what  _will_ happen. He knows there are machines and armies in Mordor, and that Gondor must fight on both fronts or be butchered. 

He must be strong on his own. He must be brutal.

If only Thranduil did not tempt him so much. If only his chambers were a place of solace in their own right, rather than (it galls him to admit) because Thranduil is there, to trust and curl against him through an evening of deep thought and desperate planning, to lie in his borrowed cloak against the fireplace and practice the harp, which of course he stole from the harpist.

If only Thranduil did not seem so intent on pushing him, sliding into Thorin's arms as though he belongs there, rocking back against Thorin's body as if he is not asking for death with each deliberate motion. "Peace," growls Thorin, hating that his cock responds so readily.

"You said I would learn to crave your touch, once," says Thranduil, in his measured way. "There are other things I crave-- sunlight, and the voices of my kin-- but this..."

He twists, and is facing Thorin, close enough to kiss, or to bite. "You have awakened in me something terrible, something base and wicked, and you will not satisfy it. You said you wished to hear me beg: have I not begged enough? Will you not touch me?"

"I would break you," says Thorin, whose throat feels too tight for breath, but he cannot help himself, and his hands want so badly, and he cups his palms across Thranduil's buttocks and pulls him close, skin touching skin. His mouth wants flesh, wants to taste and suck and bite, and he leans to press his face to Thranduil's jaw and throat and breathe the scent of his hair--

But Thranduil's voice is in his ear, low and desperate. "I do not care if I am broken," he whispers, and Thorin feels the dread fall upon him, imagines the warm body beside him gone limp and cold, and wonders if Thranduil wants him more than breath or if he merely wants to die.

He pulls himself away. It is so hard, as hard as every time before, to roll away, to turn his back, while Thranduil tries to follow him in puzzlement and understands his rejection and diminishes, accepts his isolation. There is a whimpering sound, which Thorin thinks must be Thranduil expressing his frustration, and it makes Thorin mad with injustice: that Thranduil can force him to withhold his own pleasure, and blame Thorin for not fucking the life out of him.

He should make an example of him, he thinks, as Thranduil's breathing evens into sleep. He has a game-piece, a thorn in his side; should he not move it? He cannot give Thranduil to the elves, certainly, if he wishes to gain their good-will; but is there another way to turn this torment to his gain? Is there no other against whom Thranduil's body can be turned as a weapon?

Thorin feels the plan uncurling in him like a vine from the earth, encircling and choking his heart. 

So he lets Thranduil sleep, and goes to his jewelry-box, and finds a joined beard-ring of the right size; and when he has warmed it with his breath, he slips back into bed, and with deft hands clasps it around Thranduil's cock and ballocks, and fixes it tight.  
  
Thranduil awakens, as Thorin had expected, and arches into the touch, no doubt spurred by memories of pleasure and frustration. He is hard so quickly, and  _so_  hard, and the ring does its work, purpling the elvenking's long cock until the pulse in it feels like a bird trapped in Thorin's palm.  
  
It is not until Thorin pulls back the blankets that Thranduil understands what has befallen him. And while Thranduil is too proud to beg, there is no glassy distance in his gaze, only helpless desperation and a tinge of fear.  
  
So while Thranduil bites his lip and groans and begs, Thorin dresses himself; and when he is fully clad he rings for a servant, who keeps her eyes on the floor though her cheeks are in full color, and he bids her send in his nephews.

They take their time in arriving-- it is quite late, and the servant has orders to admit them only together-- and when they enter his chambers they stop, Kili stumbling on Fili's heels, aghast to discover Thranduil lying spread across the bed-ticking with his cock bound in gold and his fists clenched and working in the blankets, and Thorin seated casually upon the edge of the bed.  
  
"Uncle--" begins Kili, but Thorin silences him with a look and gestures for both of them to stand across the room, near the fire.  
  
There is real fear in Thranduil's eyes now, and where before he merely gasped and groaned he now is painted with humiliation from breastbone to ears, his breath shallow as a fleeing hare's.   
  
"I thank you, nephews," begins Thorin, "for your fine gift. Difficult to train, certainly, but when I am in a dark mood I enjoy that." He leans over, casually, easily, and strokes a single finger down Thranduil's belly; the sound is rewarding, ripped from Thranduil's throat.  
  
"And," he continues, "I am in a dark mood, and had you not provided me with such a fine outlet for my... frustrations, I might have been less lenient with you both. Until now, that is."  
  
Fili is smiling, as if Thorin's threats are no match for the enjoyment he gains, seeing Thranduil thus tortured. Kili is only staring, hungry, transparently filled with consuming lust.  
  
"The elves of Mirkwood, what remain of them, are settled less than two days' ride from here," says Thorin. "Fili, you will ride to meet them, to deliver the message that I have their king as my thrall and I will..." The words are difficult to say. "I will give him to their care once they have served me for five years, if they swear to raise no hand against me after. Whatever loot they take in the coming war is yours."  
  
"Certainly," says Fili, who knows as well as Thorin that five years' open war against the Necromancer will leave no elves to claim Thranduil as their king. Perhaps, Thorin hopes, it will be enough to keep him pitted against the enemy.  
  
"And Kili," continues Thorin, "if you can find some way to break the Necromancer's alliance with Rohan..."  
  
Kili wrenches his eyes from Thranduil's trembling body to look at his uncle in disbelief. It is an impossible task, and he knows it, and the reward must be steep.  
  
"If they can be made our allies instead, I will let you touch him."  
  
"Touch him," says Kili, his voice incredulous.  
  
Thorin smiles, and leans down, and with one thumb and forefinger he opens Thranduil's mouth; wetting his finger upon Thranduil's tongue, he nods at Kili, and with Thranduil's own saliva he draws the pad of his finger across the crown of Thranduil's cock. The sounds he makes in response are impossible, sickening, delicious; the movement of him, the way he bucks, the arch of his back upon the bed-ticking, these things make him irresistible, and Thorin knows it. He has at last found the lever by which Kili may be moved.  
  
"If you serve your king well," says Thorin, and waves them both out of the room, and turns his face back to his writhing captive with fell delight.

If he cannot touch, Thorin tells himself, he will make the lack of touch more miserable to Thranduil than to himself. And if he cannot use his own awful longings and obsessive desires upon his enemy, should he not use the fear of worse to make Thranduil grovel for his mercy and his cock?  
  
But the victory is hollow. Even as Thorin torments him with light touches, leans over him and kisses his throat and his collarbones, the ache in his heart grows; and Thranduil shudders and groans as he always has, but he twists away from Thorin's touch, rather than toward it, and to his horror Thorin sees tears welling in his eyes.  
  
He should be fierce, proud, avenged; but Thorin feels sick, cold, nauseated with guilt. He has the joined ring off in a moment, and Thranduil cries out with relief; a moment later Thranduil is pulling him down, long arms wrapping about his shoulders and sides, legs drawing him in until Thorin's cock is riding beside Thranduil's and the pressure of skin is almost as great as the pressure of guilt.  
  
Thorin can hardly see for guilt, for lust, for rage; he wants to bite, to claw, to fuck the tears out of Thranduil's eyes and the breath from his body. He bites at Thranduil's shoulder and ruts against his belly with wild abandon, with mad uncaring, wanting only to erase-- to forget-- to escape the pain--  
  
Which is, he realizes, what Thranduil also means to do, and Thorin feels the way Thranduil is forcing his arms to go slack against his sides, the way he shakes but still struggles to keep his legs spread. "You tempt me to your death," says Thorin, viciously, still riding him, feeling how Thranduil's cock jumps between them.  
  
"I would rather die than be given to him," says Thranduil, in a tight voice with honey under the pain, arousal and death-wish together. "I would rather have your cock in me, and pretend you will protect me, and die believing it."  
  
Something is happening in Thorin's chest, something like a mace-blow against his heart, something that boils up in his throat and escapes and  _oh_  he is weeping, he is sobbing, he is cursing and pouring out his heart and he cannot, he  _cannot_. If Thranduil dies he will die a moment later, he is certain, whether by the mercy of Mahal or by his own dagger.   
  
He cannot live without Thranduil, who is killing him, who he must someday relinquish or kill in turn.  
  
"I will not give you to him," says Thorin, rolling from Thranduil's body to lie beside him, to curl around him, to apologize with hot breath and a crushing embrace and shameful tears. "I mean to have you rescued by Fili's elves, and have Kili distracted with a fool's errand, and I swear by my ancestors' beards I will not have anyone touch you but me."  
  
"It will cost you your kingdom," says Thranduil, twisting to face him, twining about him, still quite hard and still sweating in Thorin's grasp.  
  
"Perhaps," murmurs Thorin, "but I think in the end the Necromancer will have it anyway," and after this silence reigns in their bedchamber for the rest of the morning, thick as the shadows of Mirkwood and heavy with sorrow to come.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has been REVISED, with significant additional content added. If you haven't read since the first posting, there's more here to read!

After this he cannot hide from himself, or from the truth, any longer. In some distant memory he recalls the love he felt, the adoration, the all-consuming desire; he knows that once he sought excuses to join his grandfather's councils and sit at the high table, to hear Thranduil's voice. He supposes he learned a great deal of his kingcraft that way, for every word Thranduil uttered hung in his ears for months, to be dissected and understood and tasted at length, every nuance slowly revealed to his obsession.  
  
And he remembers how it changed, when he understood that what flashed in Thranduil's eyes for him was not enough to bring Thranduil sweeping to his rescue when the dragon came. In his mind, for a moment, he had been a smitten lad again, longing for an encircling arm, for a silver-haired hero with his fell and merry warriors, for salvation-- when in fact it was his own small foolish self that must be a savior, rescuing such a small number, being in his youth perhaps one-third the hero his people needed.   
  
He had changed again, in the shadow of Mirkwood, when Bilbo took with him the possibilities Thorin had begun to see, leaving him in a forest turned suddenly even darker, fleeing unspeakable powers as the elves ignored him and turned to battle. He had, in his flight, called out for Thranduil, knowing that the elves watched from the trees; he had been once more that foolish prince wishing for rescue, and once again Thranduil had failed him.  
  
Both times, he understood in his head, might be excused: could a delegation of two hundred elves fight a dragon? And was not Mirkwood crumbling about them, the elves fighting for their lives and their kingdom as the Necromancer chose that  _exact moment_ to move, after so long--  
  
It occurs to Thorin, distantly, that when Bilbo vanished, things went terribly wrong, and he wonders if the two are related--  
  
But his mind turns away, changing again as it always does, as he now realizes he is changed yet again. He wants to hate; he had so hoped to end his sorrows in a kingly move, to neutralize Fili and Kili before they toppled his throne while using Thranduil as the game-piece, as the victim of his vengeance, that he had for so long wished him to be.  
  
Now, as he stares into his water-glass, once again distracted from council, and all he can see is the despair on Thranduil's face, the pain Thorin has brought him, which Thorin somehow feels as his own.  _Agriculture,_  says the yellow-bearded dwarf across the table,  _is the backbone of... the slope-side farmers demand... superstitious, but must be pacified... could hardly be a dragon..._  
  
None of this matters. Or, perhaps, it is of dire import, and he is too distracted to think. "A dragon," he echoes, because that word has sunk through, but his adviser explains that the farmers are a backward and paranoid lot from living so long on the surface, and a detail of trained guards should make the rumors of cloud-shadows die down... tiresome, the sort of thing that should be handled by his generals, and at any rate he is lost yet again in spinning conflict with himself, wondering where his burning hate has gone.  
  
It is not until the council ends, and Thorin is returning to his chambers, that he allows himself to recall what it is that he knows and no other has yet guessed. For he, starving and ragged, with his few remaining companions, had descended into Erebor to die; and Thorin, gaunt, fueled only by his longing for vengeance, had made his way to the dragon's hoard; and there upon the mounds of gold had been naught but the still-warm impression of the dragon's belly, and the places where its feet had scrabbled in the coins.  
  
Tales were still told of his victory, how the great wurm fled to die in the wilderness alone, smitten on its brow and in its throat with Thorin's blade. Certainly it had been seen flying over Laketown, fast and high, never to be seen again; and certainly if it still breathed it would have returned for its hoard and its revenge.  
  
There is no way to guess where Smaug now rests; but Thorin alone, in all Middle-Earth, now knows that Smaug still lives.  
  
He is cold to his bones when he comes to Thranduil's bed, and very glad for Thranduil's hands to stroke his hair while he broods in silence and fear.

* * *

If one thing has gone as Thorin wished, it is that his nephews seem to have taken the bait. 

Fili, once so hungry to curry favor with Rohan, rides out with a cohort in a matter of days, forsaking his near-nightly meetings with the diplomat of the Rohirrim (as if that drunken madman could be a true diplomat) and taking with him little but a wagon of armaments and a lock of Thranduil's hair. 

Thorin himself asks Thranduil for the hair, offering to cut it where it will not show; but Thranduil lifts his hand to the nape of his neck and, without any plucking motion that Thorin can see, returns with a thin ribbon of hair as perfectly white and undisturbed as the rest of it. The roots are still intact. 

If Thorin pulled out a hair from his head, he would bleed. He has seen humans pulling hair in fights, seen barmaids rip out hanks of hair from the heads of human drunkards, and he understands that not all races are as well-attached to their hair as dwarves; but if there was any pain or resistance at all, Thranduil did not show it, and Thorin knows his hair does not fall so easily.

For Thorin has pulled that hair, and got nothing for it but an ache of frustration and a tingling silky memory on his fingers; while now Thranduil braids a small circle to be given as a token, seamless and slender, too small for a bracelet and too big for an elven finger, though as Thorin takes it from him he reflects that it would fit his thumb very well.

Fili takes this treasure with no more than a smirk. He is not his brother; to him, it is only important that Thranduil be shown his place. He does not see that his brother's eyes follow that loop of braided hair from hand to hand.

For if Fili has been distracted with the promise of loot and power, Kili is distracted by his own desperation, and their tasks are swiftly driving the brothers apart. If Thranduil is to be a tool, a trading-piece, for Fili to gain power-- then Kili must lose him, or must receive him and then preserve him, denying himself just as (if only he realized) Thorin now denies himself. And if Kili is to win Thranduil for his own enjoyment, he must break an alliance that Gondor in all its strength has not yet cracked.

Small wonder that when Fili rides out, Kili does not bid him farewell. 

It seems to Thorin that the danger of his nephews' power-madness is broken. Kili spends days in the library; he even manages grudging conversations with the beery, laughing diplomat of the Rohirrim. Fearing that Kili has some ulterior motive, Thorin makes time to visit with the man in person, and discovers that for all his loud voice and enormous feet, Heorhod is a canny fellow with a careful tongue. He does discover the reason Rohan is willing to ally with the Necromancer, however-- the idea of mutually ignoring one another, which seems to be the current agreement, is one that suits Rohan admirably. There is no draft, no tribute of arms, no surrender of rule; only the understanding that Rohan will not help its neighbor Gondor, nor trade with it favorably, and that its horse-merchants will roam toward Mirkwood rather than toward the white city. With King Theoden aging and his son beginning to show signs of the same illness that turned Theoden's beard white so early, Rohan has no great interest in war, and likes this uneasy peace well enough.

Thorin has heard whispers of Theodred's illness, and supposes it is common enough knowledge. He has also heard, though the diplomat will of course admit to no such thing, that Theoden's sister-son is unruly and has fallen from favor, and has many supporters, and may yet seize the throne.

He had hoped, when he heard that Rohan had sent an army to patrol the border between the mountains and the dark wood, that they would send this upstart lad as its captain, and that Thorin might be able to sway him with careful words; but the young captain is a woman, and thus certainly no sister-son of anyone. 

So he supposes, when he hears that Kili has stopped studying and has begun packing, that the boy is probably going after the patrolling army, which was last spotted at the north end of the border, closest to Erebor; and while he has no hope that the grim-faced captain who escorted Heorhod to Thorin's table will turn against her king, Thorin thinks it will be a very good thing if (under the neutrality of the Necromancer's agreement) she is willing to escort Kili all the way to Meduseld to be taught the meaning of futility against their half-addled king and his gray-complexioned son.

And thus, eased in spirit, Thorin gives himself permission to breathe again, and to lie in his own bed to breathe, surrounded by the scent of Thranduil's hair and the heavy, burning frustration of a dilemma no clever statecraft may solve: the treachery and madness of his own body, which is as ever wracked by longing, and is only made more wretched by the small words and tenderness that pass between him and his captive as they carefully do not touch in any of the ways they most want.


	8. Chapter 8

Kili has gone, and nobody seems to know where. He has gone alone, as far as anyone save Thorin has guessed. The only trace of him is a sheet of parchment left in his chambers:  _Remember your promise,_  it says, which many dwarves have taken as a message to a lover, but which makes Thorin's blood run cold.   
  
Fili, however, moves like the wind, and returns in little more than a week, puffed up with pride, carrying with him the written word of the elves that they will serve for Thranduil's sake, though the price is hard.  
  
"That old meddler was there," says Fili. "Gandalf, who deserted us in Mirkwood, you recall him? Oh, he was angry to lose his precious elves. At any rate, they number six hundred, and they will arrive in a month's time, once they have supplied their ranks and crossed through Laketown."  
  
To Fili, who is accustomed to ponderous armies of dwarves and men, a month's time to move six hundred so far is perhaps a little generous, but no unusual time. To Thorin, who knows how fast elves can move, the words fill him with unexpected hope-- for why would they delay, unless they had some other plan?  
  
He is going to lose Thranduil, and Thranduil will live, and Thorin's kingdom will be saved.  
  
Filled with this awful knowledge, and half blind with a new choking sorrow, Thorin brings himself to his chambers at a half-stumble, tells the servants to leave food at his door, and enters to find Thranduil sitting at the fireplace, staring as if from a window. Fire-gold glints from Thranduil's hair and turns it into a mockery of flame; licks at his flesh, shadows following the dells and ridges of his collarbones and throat.   
  
Thorin reaches for him, and Thranduil falls back against him, hearing the sorrow in the hitch of Thorin's breath, and Thorin picks him up and bears him like a bride to his bed and lays him down, the fire-warmed skin like a brand against his flesh.  
  
And Thranduil lets him, not flinching even when Thorin's kisses upon his throat turn to gentle bites, not drawing back when Thorin sets his mouth along the slope of Thranduil's cheek and breathes across his ear. But as Thorin's hands roam lower, and Thranduil's body responds to the touch, Thranduil at last begins to twist under him, resisting.  
  
When Thranduil actually pushes him away, gentle with a strange reluctance, Thorin takes note, and pauses in his touching. "Do you not want this," he says, and realizes that this matters to him now, that he is considering more than Thranduil's survival.  
  
"I... you said that you wished to have me rescued," says Thranduil, not quite meeting his eyes. "Perhaps I am a fool, but I would see the sun again before I die, and I cannot... I find that I cannot control myself, with you."

It is too much, to find him so careful now, where before he rutted into Thorin's mouth with such disregard for his own life. It is too much to know that these are the last days in which he will feel Thranduil's skin against his own, and that Thranduil will deny them both to the last.  
  
And yet, as he pictures the things he wants to do, imagines the softness of flesh and the way Thranduil's body will yield and the ease with which he may take his own pleasure if he is slow and careful and mindful of Thranduil's limits... he also sees in his mind the way Thranduil's eyes will avoid him, and the way that face (in which pain has become a quiet guest who lingers in the corners, in which the sorrow and despair of their futile efforts against the Dark are only varnish over centuries of conflict and regret)-- the way that face will distort and be stretched over bared teeth as fresh fury and loathing and agony are born...  
  
He cannot do it. He will die unfulfilled, like as not, in a coup or a battle. But he will die knowing that Thranduil, like Smaug and the Necromancer and the White Orc who now rules Gundabad, like all his old enemies he once swore to destroy, still lives.  
  
So he lies beside his captive, and he lets Thranduil lie in his arms and checks his own hungry hands, and he breathes in the scent of woodsmoke and wet leaves from Thranduil's hair, and remembers a Mirkwood he never knew.

  
And like this, with days of preparation for war, with nights of aching sorrow and bitter longing, the weeks pass, and the moon turns in the heavens, and the month of waiting wanes.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has been REVISED and split in two. If you haven't read this since the first posting, there is a major amount of new material!
> 
> The second half of this chapter has been moved to a new chapter all its own, and will be revised shortly.

The first hint of change is a rumor, a whisper that Thorin does not hear until after he sees Fili's brows knit in distrust and wrath over the dinner table. Beside Fili, the empty chair where his brother once sat is a strange complement to this new expression, the unusual gravity in Fili's face-- for without his brother at his side, Fili must ponder his own politics, and find his own sources of rumor.

Thorin makes certain to find the rumor within a matter of hours, and discovers that the army of elves, which scouts have followed in their slow progress, has called a quarantine and camped, no more than a day's ride away on a swift horse. There are whispers of plague.

If Fili is not suspicious, he is a fool; but Thorin has more information, and thus the rumor is more significant to him, and more painful. For three nights past, he sent out a pigeon with a scroll upon its leg, a low-flying creature of considerable age, a bird trained to fly for Mirkwood. A risk, he knows; but he also knows of the crystal-edged eyes of elves, and he has no other reliable way to reach them.

 _He is yours to take_ , Thorin recites from his memory.  _At noontide each seventh day the south-slope farmers bring their barrels to the granaries; conceal yourself and you will be brought into Erebor unseen._  His years of study serve him well; he writes clearly in the Elven script, as clearly as he has read about the torments of Elves for decades.

And because Fili and Kili are not the only fools of the line of Durin, Thorin had even sketched a hasty map from the store-rooms to his own chambers.

It is possible that Lake-Men caught his pigeon, and will murder him in his bed; but now, with this rumor of a halted army ringing in his ears, Thorin knows why they have stopped, and knows that there is no plague. He looks at Thranduil, who curls in the great chair before the hearth, staring into the fire; he watches the light play across his white skin, his shin where it slips from beneath the cloak, and he imagines that the flicker and curl of gold is the warmth and shadow of the sun and the clouds, and he knows his days are numbered and does not care.

* * *

The first seven-day stretch passes, and there is no rescue attempt. Thorin grinds his teeth, but he knows better than to expect a rescue so quickly. Thranduil is a torment to him still, but already he has begun to force himself to withdraw-- he turns when Thranduil touches him, he lets his broad back be his shield against that warm and sinuous flesh-- and he tells himself he does not notice the hurt in Thranduil's face.

He cannot even bring himself to pretend that he  _desires_ the hurt in Thranduil's face.

And when at last Thranduil snakes his long and powerful arm around Thranduil's side, his hand slipping up across Thorin's chest, and Thorin feels Thranduil's mouth move beside his ear:  _Great must be your burden, King Under the Mountain, if you have forgotten me entirely_. 

The silence is like an enemy's weight pressing Thorin against the earth, like the weapon poised to fall, and Thorin finds that he cannot receive this blow without a counter. "I only protect myself," he says, trying to keep the bitterness from his voice. "My nephews are blind as they are ambitious, but at least one has done his work well enough, and soon you will be gone from my bed."

Thranduil goes still, his arm suddenly careful where it embraces Thorin, as if he expects to flee at any moment. "I do not wish to depart from your bed," he says, his voice distant and measured.

It takes Thorin a few moments to speak; his throat constricts around that knowledge and his eyes ache. "I will not have you die in my bed," he says, when he has control of himself again. "I cannot protect you and I cannot bear to see you hurt. You will soon forget me when your people have brought you back into the sunlight."

Thranduil breathes against him, his hand spreading across Thorin's chest. "Not Kili, then," he says, as if there were ever a question, as if Thorin might have given up Thranduil to his nephew's ill-trained lusts.

"Are you mad," replies Thorin, twisting to look at him, incredulous. "Did you really think I would give you to him, after I swore my oath? The boy will fail in his task and return to find you long gone, and by then Fili will have his throne firmly beneath him. Did you really think I would abandon you to death at his hands?"

Thranduil does not respond, but his enormous eyes flicker between Thorin's, asking questions with no words and struggling to trust; then he leans his head in and his mouth, soft and summery even with the cold stone all about them, rests against Thorin's own mouth and takes Thorin's lower lip between his own and kisses him, sure and sweet and regretful, the first true kiss of all these long months. The curl of his breath against Thorin's beard is maddening, intoxicating; the shape of his tongue-tip where it rises to test the slope of Thorin's lip is a painful eloquent thing.

"I will not forget you for sun or moon," says Thranduil when they break apart. His mouth is glistening, dark with the pressure of Thorin's kiss. "It is not often given to our kind to feel... what you make me feel, once we have passed from youth into maturity. I will miss you very much," and he kisses Thorin again, briefly.

"I am not worth missing," says Thorin, gruffly, and turns again to let his back be his shield, lest Thranduil see the torment on his face.

* * *

Another seven days pass, and another. The elves languish in their quarantined camp, claiming pox, claiming heaves and flux, spreading rumors of dire disease. Not a single dwarf will gainsay them nor suggest that they be driven out; the risk of plague is too great, and the elves are very good at containing their filth. Thranduil takes to pacing Thorin's chambers. Thorin tries not to sleep in his rooms, then fails to stay away, then tries again and fails-- each time, he finds himself lured by Thranduil's arms, allowing himself to be kissed and kissing in return. It is painfully good, this cease-fire of passions, the low kindled loss of denying release and the dizzying shame of kissing his elven lover for hours at a time when he should want nothing but blood.

And then Kili returns. He is spotted in the low hills by a scout, who races back to Erebor to deliver his news. It takes him another half-day to reach Erebor, and when he arrives the fanfare stutters and the dignitaries gape as Kili staggers up the great steps and limps past them all with his eyes glued to the floor.

There are marks on his body. A shallow burn has disfigured a segment of his beard on the left. Thorin cannot be sure, but he thinks two of Kili's fingers have been broken.

If Rohan has done this, they all know, then it is war indeed. 

Healers cluster around Kili, fluttering like hens, and he waves them away, limping to his own chambers and locking the door. Fili hammers on the doorjamb, shouting, worried for his brother; but Kili does not emerge even to eat supper, and at last even Fili stomps away in defeat.

Thorin had not figured the captain of the Rohirrim for a torturer, nor for a violator of the peace; but while some assume Kili has been tortured by orcs, Thorin knows well enough that orcs would not have left him enough flesh to return to Erebor alive, and besides Thorin can guess where Kili has been.

And Fili also guesses. Within the hour he has mustered a few men-at-arms, no hunting gear or pavilion or other niceties in evidence. Kili still remains in his chambers, locked away from even his closest loved ones; Fili stands at the door before his men-at-arms, wearing full plate, and swears in a broken voice to avenge Kili's suffering or die in the effort.

Kili does not reply, and Fili leaves grim-faced and hard-eyed, and Thorin goes to his chambers sick in heart and belly and drowning in despair.

Two days pass, and Kili does not emerge except in the darkest part of night, hooded and silent, rooting through the sculleries. The milch-maids report this to Thorin, and he tries to catch his nephew in his prowls, guessing that Kili must be searching for food and worried half sick for his sister's boy.

Word comes that Fili has challenged the young captain of Rohan to a duel, or possibly that he has slain half their army, or possibly that he has been slain by their army. Some say they fought to the death; some say they fought with the throne of Rohan for the prize, and Thorin thinks this is ridiculous until he realizes that if that pasty lad Theodred withers away, Captain Eowyn will almost certainly inherit.

It would be a bitter irony, Thorin reflects, if Kili's suffering-- whatever it is-- brings Rohan low at last.

But time is passing, and as the days pass Thorin spends less time trying to coax Kili from his chambers (for there is no response, and only the sounds of movement in the room and the occasional sighting of a cloaked figure in the distance betray that he lives) and more time anticipating the next seven-day shipment of agricultural goods, which is only three days away.

And Thorin, coming back to his chambers in the afternoon, finds them deserted, his bed cold and empty, the signs of struggle apparent in the room.  
  
  



	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has been REVISED, with a great deal of new material added, in case you haven't read since the first posting!
> 
> This chapter also contains some pretty disturbing content. Please heed warnings. <3

At first he feels as though he will vomit, as if his heart has been torn out. Anticipation has only made the pain greater. Somehow he imagined that the rescue would come at night, and find them lying in bed together-- that Thranduil would insist upon Thorin's safety, and kiss him goodbye, and escape with a look cast over his shoulder.

He has imagined that it will happen on a very different day, with tears and groaning, with gratitude on the faces of the elves and keen loss in Thranduil's broken voice.  
  
Mere silence is unbearable.  
  
And yet-- why would Thranduil struggle, if he were being rescued? Was there a fight? The furniture is overturned, the bed-ticking ruined, actual knife-marks in the oak cross-beam of the headboard. There is  _blood_.  
  
And in the corner, Thorin discovers a moment later, there is a strange person, a brown-haired elf, lying beyond the chair, smeared and soaked with his own blood. He has been disfigured, his face cut to ribbons. He must be, Thorin realizes, the rescue party, or the intended rescuer, before he was caught and killed and desecrated.

His clothing is stiff with soot, and his right hand holds a length of broken chain.  
  
The chain is set with moonstones.  
  
Thorin shouts, bellows, realizes that he has been calling out for so long that his throat is hoarse. There are guards in the room now, servants bundling up the body; there are patrols going out, searching for the missing captive. Thorin stumbles from his chambers and sags, numb and choking, against the wall.

Why the soot? Had the rescuer come down the chimney? Thorin supposes it could be done, but did the elves not get his map and his note? Would they have been so mad and so daring as to risk finding their way down the smoke-holes of Erebor? Did the pigeon stray?

He cannot make sense of it. He cannot make himself focus. His eyes seem to drift, falling to the flagstones like a dropped garment.  
  
On the floor, he sees a glitter, a faint line like a cobweb, a silver hair.  
  
Snatching it up, he knows it is no mistake-- he has never seen a single hair of Thranduil's lying lost in the bedsheets, or tangled in the corners of his bedchamber. It does as Thranduil bids it, whether uprooting easily for a gift, or lying flat and smooth upon the coverlets even after Thorin has helplessly kissed him until his mouth is beginning to bruise. Thranduil's hair does not fall unnoticed.  
  
And Thorin is right, for not thirty paces beyond, there is another hair, this one lying upon a long carpet just at the fork of the hall.  
  
Another, and another-- he is delayed by the problem of a large room with many doors, but finds a hair caught in the hinge of one, and off he goes-- until he is a good distance from the main halls of Erebor, and with perhaps twenty hairs clutched in his hand, Thorin cannot find another.  
  
There is a sound, muffled as if through a door, just a little further on. A laugh that Thorin recognizes, and a low, wretched groan that makes Thorin sick to hear. The digging is very rough here, the tunnel close and stale, and Thorin finds the door-- a great skin, hung over a rough cut in the rock-- and throws it aside and finds Kili, eyes fierce and filled with triumph, kneeling over the naked and crumpled and bound form of Thranduil, cutting delicately at the juncture of throat and shoulder with a knife.

"Will you still fight me," hisses Kili, and there is something horribly wrong with his voice, some bone-grating overtone. "After all I've given up for you? If you knew what I've done--"  
  
"What  _have_  you done," shouts Thorin, recovering his voice, and Kili scarcely bothers to glance at him, though he pulls back the knife to reveal a rune-- his own initial-- cut into Thranduil's skin like a brand.  
  
"I rescued him," says Kili, still looking down at Thranduil's shaking body, the joy in his voice turning to melancholy. "I wanted him so badly, uncle, and you were always flaunting him... and he would have escaped, if I had not rescued him."  
  
Kili turns at last to look at him, and what Thorin sees in his face is unsettling, sickening, inexpressible but  _wrong_.   
  
"You set me a fool's task," Kili adds, as if he cannot see Thorin edging closer. "Do you know, I actually went to plead with those tall barbarians? Their captain is a fiend from hell, I swear, almost a beast-- I hope Fili kills her."

"Did they torture you," says Thorin, moving with all caution. "Mahal's stones, it's been days since you returned. You have not even seen a healer, lad, your wounds will fester--"

Kili sighs, thumbing the place where his knife has been on Thranduil's shoulder, showing that the blood has stopped its flow even though Thranduil's spirit seems to be failing. "I hardly feel them," he admits. "I feel so many other things more."

Thorin sees the way Kili's eyes are ever-drawn to Thranduil's naked body, and wonders if he can perhaps creep closer while Kili stares. The lure is obvious, and even mad from torture, Kili must know that each dart of his eyes from his uncle to his captive buys Thorin another small step forward. But has Thorin not been captured by the trap as well, even knowing the bait? Are the dwarves not born with lust in their hearts for mithril (like his hair) and moonstone (like his skin) and vengeance (like the blood drying upon his throat)?

He should let Kili stare, and slip closer, and raise one great fist-- but he sees Kili's fingers flex upon the knife, two broken and stone-stiff, and he knows that Kili has suffered some great horror and that Thranduil will pay in pain and blood for every moment Kili's haunted eyes follow his flesh. "Rohan will pay for its crimes," says Thorin, drawing Kili's attention back to him. "Fili has sworn awful vengeance. Even now he rides--"

"He rides in vain," spits Kili. "Where was he when the brands were laid against me? Where was he when the machines, when the wheels, the ropes..." He is gibbering, the knife clutched tighter against his palm. Thranduil, whose shallow breaths are growing steadier, moves his legs against the filthy stone of the floor, hardly a bid for escape but enough to turn Kili's gaze again. 

Kili stoops over Thranduil, though he still throws frantic glances lest Thorin close in; and he says something low, laughing, which makes Thranduil shudder and go pale as ice.

"It was my fault," says Thorin, desperate. "I sent you into the hands of Rohan, thinking you would balk. I did not think they would hurt you."

Kili merely shrugs. "You and Fili will feel the weight of your error, in time," he murmurs, with no real heat; all his attention is now for Thranduil. His free hand wanders, palming Thranduil's belly, stroking his thigh, pressing at his own groin beneath his trousers. The other hand is steady, for all its brokenness, for all his madness, and the knife hovers over Thranduil's skin.

Each touch seems to strip the color from Thranduil's skin.

"The fault was mine," insists Thorin. "Fili has done nothing to injure you. I was a fool, but I sent you to secure the kingdom I know you will rule, if it remains when I am gone."  
  
"But my brother is the eldest," protests Kili in mockery, thrusting his hand between Thranduil's thighs. The sinews of his knuckles flicker, fingertips exploring, and Thorin feels sick. "I might not have murdered him for the throne, you know. I might have driven him into exile, or sent him to fight the Rohirrim and let them do my dirty work. But when Rohan held me prisoner, it was not Fili who carried me away."

"Then whom," queries Thranduil, a suspicion growing inside him that twists against his spine.  
  
"Oh, the young captain hated it," Kili says, and his laugh is all wrong. "But the orcs hold her leash very tightly, uncle, and they took me-- ha ha! They took me away-- they carried me to Mirkwood..."  
  
He is laughing and crying at once, and the knife in his hand flashes as he sinks to his knees, crouching over Thranduil's shallow-breathing body.

"Mirkwood," breathes Thorin in horror, and Kili sobs aloud at the sound of the name. Thranduil's breaths come short and far apart, agonal gasps with long stretches between, even once Kili withdraws his hand.

"I know I cannot keep him," says Kili. His voice is bright, but tears course in his ill-groomed beard. "I have not your control, uncle. I will break him, but at least I will have him-- I will have the one good thing, after all the pain. They told me, they said they could not take it from me, even with knives and irons." As he speaks, he handles Thranduil like a merchant inspecting a side of meat, thumbing Thranduil's mouth open-- the jaw falls limp, the lips are white. "All that was left to me, once they cut all the good out of me, and I knew you would not let me have it. And he was escaping." Thorin has never seen Thranduil so close to the brink, and he wonders now if he could have pushed a little farther, if he might have had more, and he hates himself for wondering this and for picturing Thranduil's pleading face and his engorged cock when there he lies, a few yards away, threatened with both death and violation.

This is what Thorin planned for him, once long ago. This is the suffering he wanted for his lover. This is the darkness that Mirkwood-- that the Necromancer-- twisted into his nephew, and that Thorin carried willingly in his heart without even the excuse of torture.

Vengeance is sweet, as rot is sweet. "Please," Thorin says. "Please don't hurt him."

"Come no closer, uncle," Kili says, setting his blade to Thranduil's throat, and with his free hand he undoes his laces and pulls himself out, hard and weeping.  
  
Thorin wants to turn his face away. He has known of darkness growing in Kili's heart for a long time now, but nothing like this-- nothing could be like this--  
  
Kili ruts against Thranduil's thigh, and moans as he works at him, pulling at his limp arms, trying to arrange him so that he can be more easily violated; and all the while the knife bites against the white skin of Thranduil's throat, threatening to break it, a mere slip of the wrist from spilling his life's blood. How can Thorin act, with Thranduil's death so close at hand?  
  
And Thranduil's eyes are glassy, but as he is turned his gaze falls across Thorin, and the blank look on his face cuts deep--  _I would rather die,_  he said once, and Thranduil thinks he understands now. He can see himself as he was, once, in this dark shape hunched and laughing over Thranduil's flesh. He cannot imagine how Thranduil ever wanted him.  
  
 _Because_ , he tells himself, at last understanding:  _you gave up your vengeance and became his protector, because you chose what he wanted over what you needed_ , and he steels himself to watch Thranduil die, and he screams as he leaps.  
  
Kili half-turns at the sound, which pulls the dagger a few inches to the side, and Thranduil's head lolls and Thorin strikes like a boulder falling from a cliffside and there is a flash, Kili swinging the dagger once, twice, needles and sheets of hot pain across Thorin's ribs. There is blood, but the world is red already.

With his broken hands, Kili cannot hold the dagger, and it flies from his blood-slicked grip; Thorin does not see where it goes. Kili may be wounded and broken, but he is a fell warrior, and the moment his hands are empty he flies at Thorin and chokes him, kicking and twisting to avoid Thorin's blows. The pain in Thorin's throat is immense; the pressure in his chest is an agony. 

If he had faced Kili in open combat for the throne, swords in strong hands, Thorin knows now he would have died. As it is, even with the torments of Mirkwood marring his flesh, Kili is nearly his match, and Thorin only wins free to his next breath by grasping Kili's broken fingers and twisting. Kili screams, and Thorin sobs for air as he kicks his nephew away, reaches for Thranduil, tries to push him away and fails-- the blood loss is dizzying-- he is sliding to the floor, falling, and behind him Kili is gathering his next attack--

Thorin falls, lies like a lover across Thranduil's body, Thranduil's helpless heaving breast beneath Thorin's belly. He feels the warmth of his blood seeping across Thranduil's chilled skin, and squints against the tilting fog that has begun to close in, and feels the way Thranduil responds to the safety of his body as cover, the flickering speed of heartbeat returning. It nearly drowns out Kili's staggering footsteps as they approach.

"He's  _mine_ ," whispers Kili. "He will submit to  _me_." There is no lust in his voice, only rage, only thirst for the power and the spite that Thranduil's broken body will demonstrate.

Kili stands over them now, knife raised, breast heaving, fury twisting his battered features. There is no more room for negotiation. There will be no reconciliation of brothers. Thorin suspects there will be no new sunrise for him, and no king's stone grave either. There is only what can be saved, and what cannot be saved, and Thorin is perfectly willing to sacrifice the latter for the former.

Thranduil's mouth moves, and Thorin scarcely hears his words:  _Let me take the knife_ , he says. He does not want to die of Kili's attentions, Thorin realizes; and perhaps, a softer voice echoes in his mind, he does not wish to see Thorin dead. It would be easy, and merciful, the last gasp of effort spent to twist away, the lovers consummated in mutual death.

But Thorin has struggled with his body for too long, and his control is slipping, and as Kili spills his mad laughter and as the knife falls Thorin heaves himself half up, the twist and tear of muscle and flesh ignored and the hot spike of the stab, the shoulder-bones grating against steel, the pain drowning all thought as Thorin swings.

A mighty blow, he had told his people, was how he slew the diamond-skinned dragon. A lie, but a lie with a truth at its heart, for his sister-sons have always been warriors and Thorin was once a blacksmith.

His arm swings like a hammer, and Kili-- still gripping the knife with which he has pierced his uncle-- only gapes as Thorin's fist descends and crushes Kili's temple, bone breaking under skin, eye and skull obliterated in the ruin.

Thorin does not let himself comprehend what he has done. He hears, distantly, Thranduil's cry of horror, and feels the weight of his nephew fall limp against his chest, and somewhere in his body there is dull throbbing pain, but the sacrifice is done and the world is slipping away like a guest leaving a deathbed, and all is dark.

* * *

He only knows he is not dead because of the pain. The pain is Thranduil, whose fingers are still shaking, who is binding his wounds and pressing his hair against them and murmuring soft Elvish words, hopeless prayers in a broken voice.

He only knows these things for moments between darkness, and terrible thirst.

There is water, poured from Thranduil's hands, tasting of runoff and old earth. Thorin drinks it greedily. From the ache of his body and the hollows under Thranduil's eyes, he guesses that he has been unconscious for some time-- hours? The torches are still lit, so not terribly long, but they are growing old and feeble, and the darkness creeps in the corners and hides the heap of rags and blood that must be... he does not dare think about it. His head spins and his eyes are heavy.

He is a murderer.

"You protected yourself," murmurs Thranduil, "and myself," and Thorin knows he has said it aloud, but the comfort does not pierce like the pain. He has been no better than Kili was. Than Kili  _was_.

Behind them, at the door, there is a shout, and Fili is in the room with a dozen guards. They are discovered at last. There is so much shouting that Thorin can scarcely think. He thinks Fili is screaming; someone is dragging him upright, someone else is tearing Thranduil from him and pushing the elvenking to his knees.  
  
"Did you do this?" Fili's breaking voice fades in from the ringing hum, and Thorin forces himself to focus, to think quickly.  
  
"Elves," says Thorin. "Assassins."  
  
"I don't give a  _fuck_  about elves," screams Fili, who is cradling his brother's body. "What happened to Kili? What did you  _do_  to him?"  
  
"It was the Necromancer," says Thorin, "it was madness," and he sees that Fili will never believe him, sees the awful grief in his eyes and behind it the tide of bloodthirst that has been rising for so long, sees his own death fast approaching.  
  
Sees Thranduil's death close behind it, cannot hide from the memory of his fist crushing beloved flesh, and he feels his throat close and tears spill hot and wretched through his beard, feels a groan of horror building in him. "Kili," he says, "oh Kili, what hope is there left-- Mahal, I am going mad, I am mad--"  
  
Fili stares at him with hate that burns his skin. "Mad," he says. "The Necromancer? Have you made treaty with the Necromancer?"  
  
"Let me go," says Thorin, and heedless of the swords being unsheathed he pulls himself upright, though the weight of horror in his chest is too great to bear and the weakness of his limbs nearly sends him sprawling. "Oh, Kili--"  
  
But there is one thing left that he can save, and he bends to scoop up Thranduil, who is so quiet and pale that he looks like a corpse. "Let me go to my death," says Thorin, and takes an unsteady step, the bleeding wound in his shoulder like a new knife-blade as he bears his broken lover. "Let me keep him, let me carry him to the sunlight--"  
  
"Sunlight you shall have," says Fili, "if the snow permits," but his voice is colder than any storm on the heights, and the guards obey him, their new and golden and grieving king.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has been REVISED. If you haven't read it since the first posting, please re-read-- there is a lot of new material!

A full contingent of guards surrounds them now: dwarves with pole-arms, keeping their safe distance, enough to prevent escape even though each of them is compelled to steal glances at the carnage of Kili's corpse. Thorin himself cannot bear to look. The small rock room is thick with the stink of dry blood, and with the arrival of so many dwarves the smell of armor-grease and torch-smoke only brings out the horrid stench of gore, which had faded in Thorin's mind during the long hours of his slight recovery.

He should have run before, though he has no idea how Thranduil might have borne it. He is not certain, even now, how Thranduil dragged himself to seek water, when Thorin can feel how violently he shakes now, arms about Thorin's neck and face pressed into Thorin's blood-matted hair. But they should have run-- they should have escaped, if only Thorin were wiser. He entertains for a moment the fantasy of escape into the deepest places of the earth, into wretched abandoned digs, like a writhing beast in the dark with his pale-eyed fellow at his side.

But Thranduil needs sunlight. Thorin knows this now, in some strange part of himself that feels what Thranduil feels; the lack of sunlight, the constant threat of rape and torment, have made him weak and driven his soul to the brink of withdrawal, and were Thranduil not a king of elves with a mighty heart he would certainly lie died now.

As they will certainly both lie dead soon; but Thorin cannot be separated from Thranduil, and when the guards try he roars and struggles and swings until they back away with their palms extended. But he follows where they lead, as they murmur to one another:  _he'll be dead soon enough_  and  _I think he's dead already_  and  _didn't deserve that, even for a tree-fucking elf that's a bit much_...  
  
They think Thorin has raped him, he realizes. They think Thranduil is dying of what  _Thorin_  did to him; they think Thranduil is beyond help, already ruined, while Thorin can already see the life returning to his limbs, the flutter of his heartbeat in his throat.

Fitting, since it was Thorin that sent Kili to the machinations of the Necromancer, whose fist crushed the life from Kili's bones, that Thorin should bear the blame for what Kili has done. Fili thinks him mad, as Kili was mad; Fili thinks him a traitor, a toy of the powers of Mirkwood, manipulated into his nephew's murder, and he will hear no argument. Thorin will bear the punishment, and Kili be absolved.

As the guards goad them with pike and staff from the room, Thranduil's arms tighten about Thorin's neck, and the old surprising strength begins to return to the skin and sinew beneath Thorin's hands. Thorin has no intent of setting him down, not when a moment's weakness might leave Thranduil subject to Fili's wrath and separate Thorin from him forever.

Long stairs, an exhausting ascent; the cold begins halfway up, and bites into Thorin's bones. They emerge in a high place, a flat slab of stone suspended in an impossible precipice, an inescapable prison with no shelter but the towering sheer wall against which it is set. More than a prison, it is a place of death-- an old thing, a place for traitors to die by exposure. It has been scraped clean of snow, and one of the guards-- with a pitying look for Thranduil-- casts down his own cloak to serve as a bed for them, and then Thorin is alone with Thranduil on the mountainside, and the guards are gone.  
  
It is very cold. Clear, as the snow exhausted itself the night before, and the air is crisp and tastes of the herbs that grow above the trees on the slope-- but cold, and Thorin wraps himself around Thranduil to warm him, and feels his breathing steady and his trusting body warm.  
  
"Sunlight," murmurs Thranduil. There is awe in his voice, and a hint of tears.   
  
"Yes," says Thorin, into the sweet warmth of Thranduil's hair, into the scent of his skin, which is somehow untouched by the cold now that Thorin's protection has driven away his death.

Driven it away until sunset, driven it away until the cold bites deeper than even love may reach.

The sun is high, the afternoon frigid but bright, and upon Thranduil's naked skin the light seems to linger like honey. Soon, even with the bone-biting wind washing over them, Thranduil's skin is warmer than Thorin's own, and by the time the shadow of the mountain threatens to fall over them it is only Thranduil's response to the sun, the ancient Sindar vigor spreading through his veins and warming him against the chill, that keeps Thorin from freezing.

It is like holding a burning brand. Thorin's skin grows numb where Thranduil is not touching it; the wind sluices over the mountain here, so fast and clear that Thorin fancies he can see the boughs of trees a hundred ells below, without a hint of haze from moisture. Thranduil, on the other hand, is so warm against his frozen skin that his fingers ache as he presses them against Thranduil's breast.

Strange, to lay so close and with such desperation, and to have it rise not from his own lust but from external pain. He almost does not realize that Thranduil is stirring, that the shape of his body is liquid and mobile against him; but Thranduil's mouth opens slightly against Thorin's temple, his breath like a furnace, and he whispers some small meaningless thing in Thorin's ear, a hopeless comfort.

"I have been your death," says Thorin, tasting stone-cold air as he parts his lips to speak. "I should have sent you to your kin the moment I saw your face. I intended wickedness; I mean to hurt you. My crimes are worse than Kili's-- I drove him to his ruin-- I used you foully--"

"Hush," murmurs Thranduil. "Your crimes are great, but if I am to be your judge, I will not condemn you, here at the end of both our folly."

"I condemn myself," retorts Thorin, drawing back to address Thranduil face-to-face. The crag looms above them, the sky behind it almost too bright to look at, the rock-face dark with its own spreading shadow, and the shape of it seeps over their bodies, sucking away the faint warmth of Thranduil's eldritch affinities. (He understands, now, that Thranduil will take some time longer than himself to die, and wonders what will become of Thranduil when he is besieged by carrion-crows, alone with Thorin's body.)

"Then let me sentence the condemned, since the wrong was done to me," says Thranduil, and before Thorin can reply Thranduil presses his mouth to Thorin's own. His lips are so warm that Thorin can make no defense, and his own mouth moves gratefully under Thranduil's own, relinquishing control entirely.

A strange trust grows between them now, a new thing Thorin has not known before. He can feel, as Thranduil's tongue curls into his own mouth and Thranduil's hands splay across his back, the hard length of Thranduil's arousal, and he knows that by his previous habit he should withdraw, denying pleasure by his own authority and will.

But even as Thranduil's body moves against his, as Thranduil presses him back into the thin cloak over the cold stone and stretches his body across Thorin's own like a blanket, as the warm comfort of their touch takes on a hungry edge and the sharp pain of still-oozing wounds makes each movement and pressure a trial, Thorin begins to understand this thing growing in his heart. He trusts Thranduil, as he has not trusted him before, to decide the bounds of life and death for himself, to take what pleasure he can withstand and to deny himself what he cannot. Perhaps this is the knife upon which Thranduil wishes to throw himself, like a mortally-wounded soldier taken prisoner; or perhaps this is the last comfort for them both, before the cold and the crows take them, before exposure and hunger and thirst break them.

Perhaps this is, in a way, the voice he has denied his lover for so long.

The thought sustains him as Thranduil sighs against his throat, as the first moan and then the second escape Thranduil's lips, as the languid burning roll of his hips becomes more forceful and more directed. Thorin clings to him with fingers gone on the outside numb with cold, lent articulation and grip only by the heat of Thranduil's skin; but now the heat comes from Thranduil in waves, and rutting against him feels like being buried in living coals, and terror rises in Thorin's soul out of proportion to any pleasure as Thranduil's body stiffens and his embrace tightens and Thorin hears something that sounds like pain, or like sorrow, torn from Thranduil's throat in low and inexorable tones.

It is pleasure. It is the sound of Thranduil's climax, which Thorin has never heard, which floods him with unbearable warmth as Thranduil's seed soaks between them through the ruined tatters of Thorin's clothing. It is the shaking proof of a new thing, a possibility, which has risen between them, which may yet escape them in the oncoming cold of the fatal night; but for now they cling tightly, Thorin crushed for breath and wincing with the stabbing pain of his wounds but unwilling to let his lover go, and Thranduil continues to breathe and to move in small flutters of lip and eyelash against Thorin's skin.

He is not dead. Thranduil is not dead; the thought is like sunrise or like rescue or like the distant dream of hope that has been so long lacking in the world. For they are equals now, both doomed and both prisoners, both subject to the same awful fate-- and Thranduil is free to love him or to let him die, and somehow he seems to have chosen Thorin in defiance of all sense or sanity.

Erebor now hangs on a spider's thread, upon the whim of a bereaved new king whose choices are all overshadowed with death and loss. The very fate of Middle-Earth seems set, looming over them all like an executioner's axe; death follows them closely all about, soon to overtake them and destroy what little kindling hope they have found. But for this moment, against the cold, with warm skin and a beating heart, Thranduil lives, and the knowledge of it sends tears spilling from Thorin's eyes to freeze upon his cheeks in the intolerable, growing chill.  
  
They lie like this for hours, hoarding the last hints of sunlight and the slowly ebbing warmth of Thranduil's skin, until the cold becomes more than piercing and they both are numb and blunt-handed, until Thorin is frozen so deeply that he forgets what cold means and begins to feel as if he is nearly warm again, and twilight turns the shadows beneath Thranduil's eyes into purple bruises.

All is quiet. The stars rise over them, jewels in the high vaulted arches of heaven, glittering in smears and ribbons. Calm steals over Thorin's heart; for if Erebor, the last free land, falls to Mirkwood's squalor, will the stars not remain untouched? The battles to come, the blood to flow in rivers, seem small and petty beside the inextinguishable lights above. 

So easy, to slip into this passive darkness. Such small things, these disasters-- how could anyone mind them?

Except that with each battle comes a hundred death-cries, a thousand broken hearts. Except that here, on the side of this mountain, two last breaths will be stolen from, perhaps, the last of the kings who could have stood against the Necromancer. Except that when the black hand of Mirkwood lies like a smothering cloud of smoke over the whole of Middle-Earth, then who will look at the stars?

There is a sound, like a drum or a rushing wind. There is a shadow that falls over them, then is gone, then returns, each time swift and tattered, like a flag across the failing light. Then a sound comes, like rock grinding and sliding on the cliffside above them; and a scuffle on the stone; and small feet alight on the slab beside Thorin's head, and a small familiar hand shakes him by the shoulder.  
  
"Thought I'd never find you," says Bilbo.  
  
Thorin looks at him through frozen lashes as if seeing a ghost. There's no question: his hand is warm and his mouth is the same, curling at the corners; but his eyes are harder than before, lined with untold horrors and sorrows, and his face and his hands as he pulls Thorin upright are scarred and somehow twisted, and above him on the cliff, clinging with great claws by which the three of them are lifted to safety and borne into the darkening sky, is Smaug himself, the living fire-wurm.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has been HEAVILY REVISED since the first posting, with an absolute shitload of new content added. Next installment will be an ALL-NEW CHAPTER WOOWOOOOO~~~
> 
> Anyway, on with the awfulness!

(Later chapters removed d/t fewer changes from final text>


	13. A note for my readers

For those of you who have followed Lain Low up til now: this work has undergone such massive revision and growth that, rather than deleting the original version, I'm choosing to post the completed work as a new story. The completed work stands at around 75k words and will begin posting this evening, to be posted in its entirety by 5/24. 

 

Thank you all so much for your comments, your support, and your gentle pushes to keep going! If not for you, I would have abandoned this story a year ago; instead, I'm now putting the finishing touches on a full-sized novel, and hoping that it's the kind of quality that you all deserve. I'll see you on the new post!

 

<3


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